


like a river after a rainstorm

by that_this_will_do



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Internalized Acephobia, M/M, Realizations, the aftermath of sex you're just now realizing you didn't want to have
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27045499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_this_will_do/pseuds/that_this_will_do
Summary: If he closes his eyes, he can still the smile George gave him just before he stood up. Wide and lazy. Pleased. His face and neck and chest were shining. Sweaty satisfaction. Looking at Alex as if would go again right now, if only the body were willing.And if that smile was captured in a photograph, Alex would feel flushed, turned on at the very idea of where it came from. And if it were George, and Alex had had nothing to do with putting that smile in place, he would feel jealous. And Alex if were its cause he thought he’d feel accomplished.Maybe he was wrong.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/George Washington
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	like a river after a rainstorm

**Author's Note:**

> see end notes for summary

> _ I am like a river _
> 
> _ After a rainstorm _
> 
> _ Raging away _
> 
> _ Too fast to die _

\-- Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Without Love”

George is in-- Washington is-- The man he’s in love with is in-- The man he’d do anything for-- The one person he gives a damn about-- The man who just finished fucking him-- The man--

_ He _ is in the bathroom. Alex follows his shadow with his eyes, watches as it interrupts the light under the door. His eyes are heavy, his lips swollen, hair stuck down to his forehead.

Pull back. Alex is lying on top of the sheets in this enormous bed, where the covers have already been kicked aside, in this enormous room, where there is only one light left on and the city skyline pokes in through the glass windows. He feels too high up. He doesn’t trust anyone, but least of all the floor beneath him, or then the floor beneath that, or the floor beneath that. 

The room is very nearly silent, but Alex can still hear the echo of skin slapping against skin, harsh and obscene, staccato thumping in time with the man grunting above him, with the noise his own body was making.

If he closes his eyes, he can still the smile George gave him just before he stood up. Wide and lazy. Pleased. His face and neck and chest were shining. Sweaty satisfaction. Looking at Alex as if would go again right now, if only the body were willing.

And if that smile was captured in a photograph, Alex would feel flushed, turned on at the very idea of where it came from. And if it were George, and Alex had had nothing to do with putting that smile in place, he would feel jealous. And Alex if were its cause he  _ thought _ he’d feel accomplished.

Maybe he was wrong.

The next instant, George flicks off the bathroom light and opens the door. Alex squeezes his eyes shut. He’s not ready yet. He can’t look at him, he doesn’t want to been seen right now. 

But its too late to do anything. He could have gotten dressed while George had washed up. Could have pulled the soiled top sheet off and piled it into the corner. Could have stopped at any time. Could have told George “this doesn’t feel good.” Could have said, “Hey, slow down.” Could have simply stopped moaning, stopped whispering  _ yes yes please _ , stopped saying what he knew would convince George to keep going. 

George would have listened. He’s a good person.

Unlike Alex.

“Hey baby,” George says, soft and low. Fond.

A good person would have rolled onto their back and blinked up at him. Return the smile. A good person would accept the warm washcloth, offer a kiss in return, and let the afterglow carry them into sleep. A good person would be happy after finally getting what they’ve been flirting at for months. 

But Alex does none of those things. For a moment, Alex does nothing at all, until George’s hand comes down on his shoulder and he can’t help but flinch. First at the contact, then at George pulling away.

“Alex?” 

He wishes he had never put George in this position. Wishes he had never asked for this. 

He can hear George shifting, can almost hear him thinking. When he speaks, his voice is so open he wants to flinch again. Wishes that he had known better before all this started.

“Do you me to go?”

And he wishes George hadn’t asked that first, but he nods. Nods because it would be the easiest thing, to be alone.

“I’ll be in the living room.”

There are footsteps, the sound of the bedroom door swinging, and Alex keeps his eyes closed. He wonders how long he’s allowed to lie here before his body betrays him again. Already, he is shivering. He wants a shower, and long, thick pajamas. 

And to never do what they just did again.

An idea which feels both more and more certain and more and more ridiculous as he finally pushes himself up to sit, and then to stand. He’s not even sore, not physically. All George did was touch him, pull him close so that the could grind against each other, whisper in his ear, mold himself over Alex and hold him down. Everything Alex had fantasized about. Everything he thought, for sure, he’d be into. 

He was wrong. 

Was he wrong? Maybe they just need to try again.

No.

George might not even want to anymore.

Despite this, the sweatshirt and pants he gathers from the closet are George’s. They’re too big for him, he knows they’re too big for him, but he wants it. He goes to the bathroom to wash up. Doesn’t look at himself in the mirror, doesn’t want to see his reflection. He’s never looked at his reflection without the light on, just in case its not himself he sees in the dark. The light is on now, but it still feels dark. 

He wishes he had a way to brush his hair. Should have planned ahead, but he didn’t. He goes back into the bedroom to find the hair tie he was wearing when he showed up, wired and giddy, to George’s apartment. 

Wired and giddy because they were going to have sex. It was going to happen. George was the most beautiful man he’d ever known. He wanted him. Had thought about this. Now it was going to happen. He’d been so careful getting dressed to come over. Put his hair up, actually paid attention and tried to center the ponytail, wound the elastic around neat and tight. George had taken it down again, when they were making out on the bed, the first “Can I...?” that Alex said yes to. First of many. Because George was a good person. He’d been gentle with the elastic, only pulled a little, and pulled the way you were supposed to pull hair. It still hurt. And it didn’t feel good. And it’s fucking with Alex, that it didn’t feel good. That the “there you go, such a sweet thing, can I take care of you” sounded as overdone and uncomfortable coming from George as they did coming from a one-night stand. It was supposed to be hot. He’s a hair-pulling and talking-during-sex kind of guy, he was sure of it. George was good at it. It was supposed to be good. 

The hair tie is on the bedside table where George put it down. More evidence that George is fantastic, and remembered to save the hair tie because it was the only one Alex brought. 

He’s really fantastic, a little part of Alex says. Not even snide, now.

I’m so tired, the same little part says. The little part that wants. The constant undercurrent of George-related thoughts and fondness. The part of him that belies his attempts to be aloof and casual, that undermines his ability to write the whole thing off as “not for me.”

I want comfort, it says. I want it to feel good.

His feet carry him to the living room. George is lounging on the couch, book between his palms.  _ Beware of Small Nations  _ by Robert Fisk. He looks up at Alex when he walks in. For a second, their gazes catch and Alex stutters, stops. He stands in the half-light of the hallway’s end and waits. For what, he’s not sure.

“Do you want some water?” George asks.

Alex nods, because it’s a place to stat at least. He feels a smile poking at his lips, when he remembers that water is George’s first step to solving anything. It was one of the first things Alex deciphered about him, that pouring a glass of water from the side-table in the office was George’s way of collecting his thoughts. 

He takes a seat on the couch as George goes to the kitchen, tucking his feet under himself. By now, the tears that were pressing at his eyelids have receded. The ache in his chest doesn’t feel nearly as awful as it had a minute ago, and not nearly awful enough to warrant all of this. 

He hates this part--the part just after a breakdown, when everything goes back to normal but the pain is still there. His shoulders hunch, body instinctively curling into itself. He laces his fingers together, squeezes them between his knees.

George returns and sets the water on the coffee table, sets himself on the other end of the couch. Equal and opposite--his posture is open, limbs relaxed, belied only by the furrow in his brow.

Alex takes a sip of water. Cold, shockingly cold, in his mouth, against his palm.

“I guess I should explain,” he says to the bookcase behind George’s right arm.

“You don’t have to.”

Alex glances over at him, then away. Then again, then away. The silence stretches. Like a balloon. Bigger and bigger, tighter and tighter, thinner and thinner.

“It was good,” he blurts. 

George doesn’t say anything. Alex notices that he’s rocking back and forth slowly, that the tears are back. Body betray him. 

“I didn’t like it.”

Body betray him.

“I don’t want to do it again.”

“Then we won’t do it again,” George says, after a pause. When Alex doesn’t say anything else.

He puts his hands over his face, feels the words  _ don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave  _ pressing on his throat. He swallows.

“Would that,” his voice wobbles, “be okay with you?”

“Yes,” George says. Alex can’t bring himself to look. 

“Why?” he whispers. 

“Because I care about you,” George says. Soft. Earnest. “More than anything, and certainly more than sex.”

Part of him resents how simple George is making this. The rest of him is afraid to believe him. He swipes his fingers under his eyes and pushes himself up, tries for composure, shakes his head.

“So, if we never had sex again that would be fine?” he snaps.

“Yes,” George says. 

“Ever.” 

He’s glaring now, but he knows his jaw is trembling, and he knows George can tell. George raises a brow.

“And that would be fine with you. You wouldn’t be angry. Or disappointed.”

He can see George’s chest expand as he inhales, watches him think it over. Notices only now how fast his heart is beating.

“I’d be disappointed,” he starts, “If I could never hold you again, because I… enjoy giving comfort through touch. But it isn’t comfort if you don’t want it, and I would get over it. And I wouldn’t leave. I’m here in whatever capacity, for however long you want me.”

“Because you care,” Alex says flatly.

“Yes.”

Alex shifts, takes another sip of water. Fiddles his fingers.

“You can hold me now, if you like,” he says.

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” Alex snaps. But there’s no heat behind it anymore. He clambers over the middle cushion, settles against George’s chest. George’s arms wrap around him, and Alex feels the energy seeping out of him.

“I don’t know what this means,” he whispers. Trying, yet again, not to cry.

George’s thumbs strokes over his shoulder.

“I don’t---” he breaks off, inhales wetly. “I don’t know--”

“You don’t have to know,” George says. This close, Alex can feel it rumbling in his chest.

Alex closes his eyes. He’s so, so tired. Warm, sleepy.

Safe?

He drifts. 

Body betray him.

He falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Short summary: Alex and George are in a relationship, they just had sex for the first time, which Alex initiated and enthusiastically participated in the whole time, despite not enjoying it. Alex is ace, but he hasn't figured it out yet. This is the aftermath.


End file.
